


Status Mission Incomplete

by xvoided



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Because of Reasons, Clumsy Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale is Bad at Feelings, Elemental Magic, Emissary Stiles Stilinski, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt Stiles, Hurt/Comfort, I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good, Magical Stiles Stilinski, POV Stiles, Panic Attacks, Post-Nogitsune, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski, Protective Derek, Scott McCall is a Good Alpha, Scott is a Good Friend, Sheriff Stilinski is a Good Parent, Stiles Stilinski Being an Idiot, Well duh, if that wasn't brutally obvious, random shit i made up, sterek
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 21:48:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7192079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xvoided/pseuds/xvoided
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some mythical creatures are nice. Others, however, are not and unfortunately Stiles is one of those people that has absolutely zero luck and gets into trouble with a Leshy - another supernatural being Stiles has yet to research obsessively - and well, Derek gets kinda dragged into it and when was the last time Derek caught a break? </p>
<p>In other words, everything is a big mess and Stiles is the only one who can unravel it (with, of course, the assistance of the pack).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> this summary is a chaotic mess just like my life

Stiles has a mission. 

He wakes up in the middle of the night knowing he has a mission. For reasons he can’t explain however, the dancing purple swirl of dust lifting his jeans up from the corner of his frankly chaotic bedroom and levitating the pair towards his bed really doesn’t faze him. Fact, his cloudy two AM mind set more or less  _ welcomes _ it. He doesn’t even find it the slightest bit strange that it picks out a t-shirt and flannel for him as he pulls his jeans on and Stiles fully  _ allows _ it to guide him to his car in a less than forceful way having absolutely zero idea where he’s heading. A mission so important in fact that he really can’t think of why he’s allowing purple dust to guide him somewhere for absolutely zero reason that he can think logical but it’s important he knows that, and frankly, that’s all he really knows because what the hell is he doing in the woods now and why is there purple dust following him? 

Apparently though, the purple dust is a complete dick because when he gets home, the entire pack is in his living room, showing various forms of grief, distress, and annoyance and he’s confused for a brief second before Scott steps forward to show that only 6 out of the seven pack members are present to reveal the fact that Malia, their seventh member, is very much missing. He looks around at his friend’s facial expressions for a second before he comes to a conclusion: 

“I got magic-manipulated again, didn’t I?” 

 

Considering the circumstances, Stiles really can’t complain. But if he was going to (which  _ vocally _ he won’t because he’s partially terrified of Derek) he would complain about the fact that the entire pack is crammed into his jeep in means to take a road trip down to the vet clinic all while being four in the morning and he’s not even the one driving and with that, being the mature person Stiles is, he substitutes his desire to complain with pouting and occasional grunts of agreement. 

When they reach the clinic, Deaton is suspiciously alert taking into account the time and already knows the complete story and Stiles catches himself wondering if the man actually ever sleeps.

“I think Derek is right,” because when is Derek ever wrong. They all filter into the back room as Deaton pulls on gloves and pats a hand on the metal observation table in the middle of the room, ushering Stiles to get up onto it which he does because A) he wants to go home and unworldly  _ not _ be surprised (since Liam ruined it by telling him on the ride over) by the fact that his room is flying in a warp bubble of purple magic and B) because he feels that he’s not really allowed to be stubborn at the moment considering he got Malia kidnapped by accident. “Whenever a trickster, in this case what I supposed is a Leshy, works with the imprints of an abandoned trickster vessel, it leaves remnants.” He pries open Stiles’ left eye and shines a light into it.

“What does that mean?” Scott asks because Deaton tends to talk in gibberish.

“Stiles still has the imprints from the fox and any trickster, if skilled enough, can use the dry imprints to lure their next victim into coercion. When they want something, they generally always get it and do anything to get there.” He says, moving to the next eye.

“Imprints?” Lydia asks. 

“There’s black flakes in Stiles’ eyes which indicate that his body has been used by a trickster before and if I can see properly, it looks as though they are turning purple now. Every trickster has it’s own colour of magic for which changes the colour of its imprints. Leshy spirits use purple magic as basic trickster spirits use yellow and kitsunes either use black or orange depending on their motives.”

Everything snaps into place then and Stiles understands it all in a rush. He knew he read about transferrable magic not too long ago and his whole floating room situation rang a distant bell in his memory. Magic seemed kind of abstract to him back when he first started reading about it all, considerably speaking, and he never really thought to go over it again. “Stiles eyes should flicker purple some time soon and he’ll get his memories back along with the suffering of what he has given up.”

“Given up?” Stiles suddenly feels strangely exposed even though Scott is the one who asked the question. 

“Tricksters aren’t generous. They would never give something in return, all they do is take.” Deaton says, his voice calm and his words carefully planned out.

“For Stiles to give up Malia, it must’ve offered Stiles something bigger. Otherwise it wouldn’t have bothered with him, it would’ve just taken Malia.” Derek adds.

“If that is the case, then we’ll have to wait for Stiles’ eyes to change.” 

 

It takes a couple days for his eyes to glow purple but predictably happens at one of the most convenient times. The pack had arranged a meeting that night (or morning) at Deaton’s, planning out a schedule for which person took the shift of watching Stiles at which time.

It was exhausting, to say the least.

And shocking because since when are they ever that organized? With not only shifts that his friends actually stayed loyal to, but the daily meetings that took place at Derek’s loft which consisted of Derek looking deeply into his eyes and Scott pacing back and forth impatiently as Stiles sat and stared at the walls having absolutely no control over anything. 

It was the last pack meeting of the week when his eyes finally decided to glow.

“Whoa, dude! Your eyes.” Scott points out and Stiles doesn’t even remember standing up from the couch nor for that matter even putting his pizza down or pausing Age of Ultron, but suddenly he’s in the woods and although he’s positive he heard Scott’s voice, Scott isn’t there. Nor is any of his friends. He’s just alone, in the woods, by himself and it’s dark and none of this is making any sense.

“Hey Stiles, can you hear me?”  _ Yes _ , he thinks but he can’t say anything and where the hell is Scott’s voice coming from? “Stiles?” 

“He’s in some sort of trance.” That’s Lydia and Stiles can hear her fingers snapping in front of his face. Although it’s not Lydia’s hand that he can see, he does however see something shimmer in the distance and then suddenly the trees around him tilt and detach from their shadows like a 3D comic book without the 3D glasses. It’s like the world is stretching itself and Stiles is the only one obeying the laws of physics. A guy then sprouts out from a blade of grass, it growing tall only to morph into what Stiles purposes as the Leshy since he twirls purple magic around his finger and is also the only person remotely obeying physics (even though he did sprout out from a fucking blade of grass).

“ _ This _ rodeo show has been heinously boring.” The man says, yawning as if to emphasize his point. 

“I wouldn’t call it boring, I mean, you did just sprout out of a blade of grass.” Stiles deadpans and the guy rolls his eyes. He snaps his fingers and points at Stiles to hold out his hand - which Stiles does - and a snow globe comes from the sky to land softly in Stiles’ grip.

“That’s Malia and I gave you one binding spell to one person in that room. Does that help?”

“No.” He says, shaking the snow globe to awake an angry Malia who yells at him in high pitched gibberish.  

“Good.” He says before snapping his fingers to make Malia disappear. 

“Wai-” And then he’s back in Derek’s loft, falling to his knees in desperation for air. His stomach twists at how violently his head throbs and he throws up all over Derek’s floor and he doesn’t even have time to feel embarrassed before his head literally feels like it’s going to explode. Memories start flooding in and he can’t even keep track of what all of it means. He can feel his head press up against his skull in every way possible and he screws his eyes shut because he’s almost certain they’re going to gush blood, he can feel it swishing behind his eyes along with the swirl of pixelations that make up his vision and someone definitely knocked him over the head with a sledge hammer about twenty billion times and he can’t breathe. He’s dying, like he’s positive he’s dying. He can hear his voice screaming in agony and it hurts like hell, like his vocal chords are sandpaper and they’re rubbing against each other, but he can’t stop. It feels like screaming is the only way to express just how much pain he’s in. 

“Stiles, look at me!” Somebody yells and he notices the warm grip on his shoulders and the fury of panic around him as he throws up again and how do they expect him to look anywhere when his eyes are literally about to explode? A warm feeling floods through him as the pain in his head subsides and he collapses back onto someone’s lap and he’s panting but he feels like he’s in a semi state of a dull ache which is actually nice. He’s practically delirious and hyperventilating but warm hands are on his face, kneeling over him and repeating his name over and over again and he opens his eyes to see Lydia crouching in front of him, cautiously avoiding his vomit and Derek’s hand clutches his bicep with pulsating thick black veins crawling up his arm and Liam has wolfed out and Kira is calming him down and he’s assuming Scott is the one cradling his head and he suddenly feels exhausted and he wants to sleep. 

“I officially hate the supernatural.” He forces out of his throat right before he passes out.  


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so just to clear things up in the last chapter  
> when Deaton says “tricksters aren’t generous. They would never give something in return, all they do is take”, he was thinking of tricksters in general and assumed their motifs were generally all similar when Derek steps in and says “For Stiles to give up Malia, it must’ve offered Stiles something bigger. Otherwise it wouldn’t have bothered with him, it would’ve just taken Malia” because he knows specifically about Leshy tricksters bc of the books Laura read him and corrected Deaton saying Leshies specifically like games and it wouldn't just take something without anything in return. In short however, Leshies really enjoy fucking with people (cause stiles is just so easy to fuck up) and Deaton was giving them a little more positive credit then the truth...  
> does that make sense or is everyone still deadass confused? i usually have difficulty explaining the rush of information inside my head so if everyone is still blatantly confused i can rewrite it (: okay so this chapter is fairly confusing as well so take caution its a classic representation of someone who needs to go to bed when their adhd meds have worn off 
> 
> also sorry this took so long im terrible  
> leave me notes so i know if i should rewrite this chaos of jumbled sentences (;

He knows what it means a week later and he almost falls out of his chair. 

It’s late and he’s in his room researching something along the lines of a werewolf that has the ability to use magic yet also be an emissary which purely happened because he gets distracted easily and clicked a bunch of links that seemed somewhat on the relevant topic and this is where he is when finally he knows what the nagging feeling is he’s had ever since he got his memories back from the night he accidentally lost Malia. All of a sudden, everything he has ever known to be true is false and it’s all Derek. He reads a lot of shit online which definitely isn’t really news to anyone who knows him, but this - this feeling of such an intense pull is nothing like anything anyone can ever read online. It’s dizzying to a point where he has to squeeze his head between his knees just to reassure himself that he won’t pass out, it’s painful like someone has just punched him in the ribs about several gazillion times repeatedly with a shovel or like, Bucky Barnes’ metal arm like if Bucky had just swooped into his bedroom and punched him just right in the chest that would perfectly describe how it feels, and it’s all Derek. If Derek was a colour derived to a feeling, Stiles is feeling so Derek at the moment. He’s seeing the colour of Derek, he’s smelling the smell of Derek it’s like a nice waft of freshly chopped wood and cinnamon sugar, he’s feeling Derek and he  _ feels _ like he’s going crazy. When he hears the distinct pop of the window opening, he almost falls out of his chair.

“What the hell did you do?” Derek asks, struggling to open up the window like he’s actually weak. His words come out strained and his voice is  _ so rough _ and Stiles concludes that Derek is not allowed to do that. He’s not allowed to speak or do anything that could be considered the slightest bit attractive because Stiles can’t control whatever the hell this hype is. It’s annoying, frankly speaking because he really does hate the world. He hates everything except maybe his jeep and the smell of his new shampoo that Scott recommended him. And irritatingly, Derek Hale.

“I didn’t do anything!” he squeaks, suddenly wanting to throw something in Derek’s general direction but he likes all his objects on his desk where they are and Derek’s face is pretty. 

“I really want to punch you or rip your throat out but for some reason I really can’t, like your just a soft, plush human that is really sarcastic and witty to the point it makes me actually sick which is weird because werewolves don’t get sick, I have never experienced a common cold in my entire life and it makes me sad that such a squishy human like you has to suffer through colds and stuff and be a victim of my rage but I really just want to punch you, Stiles. I want to...I want to like, punch you.” he’s clenching and unclenching his fists like he really does want to punch Stiles but physically can’t form the strength to do so which Stiles will forever be grateful for. Stiles just feels pissed, he feels this  _ love _ and  _ emotion _ he doesn’t want to feel and curious to where the fucking hell Derek Hale went. 

“I think that is the longest sentence I have ever heard you speak.” Derek suddenly strides over to where Stiles sinks deeper into his leather chair and pulls him into a tight hug. 

“Fix this.” Derek whispers like he wants to scream but he physically can’t or he’s going to break something from the strain. “You’re so amused and I hate you.” 

“Wolves are tactile animals. It explains the hug.” Stiles is pushing Derek off when a voice is the back of his head that sounds an awful like what he sounded like when he was thirteen asks him why he isn’t freaking out about a Derek hug because not too long ago he specifically remembers texting Scott about a brush of hands between him and Derek and how it technically counted as first base. “Call Scott.” Derek scrambles to get his phone out of his pocket, almost dropping it on the way from speed dial key M to his ear. Scott picks up on the third ring which Stiles is frankly astonished by considering the time is like, two in the morning and Scott’s not generally a night owl. 

“Scott, come to Stiles’ house there is something very wrong. Very, very, severely wrong!”

“It’s not that bad Jesus Derek, you’re gonna freak him out give me the phone.” Derek passes Stiles the phone almost instantaneously, a pleading expression masking his face and it looks so strange. Derek’s eyebrows are supposed to go up and down, not cross into new emotions Derek has the incapability of feeling.

“So someone stole Derek because he’s bleeding emotions I never knew he had.” Stiles says, turning his chair around and picking up a rubix cube that is cluttered with a bunch of other objects on his desk.

“What, really? ‘Kay, I’m coming right over.” the line goes dead and Stiles throws the phone back to Derek who’s too busy pacing the length of the room that he nearly doesn’t catch it but werewolf reflexes make it impossible to do so. 

Scott ends up taking roughly half an hour since he decided to bring the entire pack with him and Lydia refused to come unless she got coffee first and so at 3 in the morning, - waking his Dad up briefly only for him to state rather tiredly that he hates what his life has come to then meander back off to bed - Derek and Stiles stand a metre away from each other, side by side as Scott sniffs them over. 

“You guys seem fine…” Lydia observes, biting into an apple she stole from the kitchen.

“Alright, but I don’t feel fine, Lydia! It feels not fine, it’s not fine to feel what I am feeling, this feeling is in no way  _ fine _ !” Derek exclaims and Stiles can’t hold back a snort. 

“Okay so something is definitely wrong because I’ve never heard you speak more than three words at a time.” Liam says and Stiles shrugs, looking Derek up and down to stop his wandering eyes at his ass for a second longer. 

“You guys smell normal.” Scott says, moving to stand beside Lydia as they both cock their heads to look at where they stand in the middle of the living room. 

“Try using your alpha eyes maybe.” Kira suggests, twirling a pencil between her fingers. Scott shrugs and closes his eyes, steading his stance and breathing in a big gulp of air before gleaming his crimson red eyes at Stiles and Derek. He jaw falls open a little at the sight which makes everyone else stiffen and causes Derek to shove his hand in his mouth to bite his nails. 

“You guys are… I don’t know how to explain it. There’s like, a purple tether between you two. Like, you’re  _ connected _ .” Stiles reaches up to clutch his head as a sudden profound pain erupts from the centre of his brain, a flicker of recognition making his body ache. Stiles can see Derek mock the action beside him as they both groan out in pain. 

“I think this has something to do with the Leshy and Malia.” Stiles groans, Scott clearing a place for him to sit down on the couch. 

“You idiot!” Derek expresses, wincing in pain just as Stiles does. “If what I think is right-”

“We’ll ask Deaton.” Lydia interrupts but Derek isn’t phased by it.

“You traded Malia for a binding spell with whoever gave you the strongest emotional energy. Laura had this children's book that were filled with stories about mistakes people made with tricksters. Love potions, death bounties, popularity, binding spells… tricksters use whatever takes the most emotional energy.” Stiles does remember the Leshy who visited him in his trance say something along those lines.

“What does that mean?” Scott asks, rubbing soft hands over Stiles’ back as he leans over in pain. Stiles thinks it was pretty clear what Derek said but if Stiles knows Scott well (which he does), Scott tends to not listen very well while he has a sudden burst of panic.

“Whatever I feel, Stiles feels, whatever Stiles feels, I feel that’s why I’m acting like this and he’s acting like that because we are linked, we’re binded. If I get hurt, he gets hurt, if I feel strong emotions, he feels strong emotions.” 

“Well that’s just great since I feel a lot more emotion than you will ever be capable of ever feeling.” Stiles deadpans, massaging his temples and willing away the nausea that suddenly sweeps over his body. Derek huffs, taking a seat beside Stiles, nervously chewing on his fingernails which is something Stiles thinks he should be doing but he just feels so drained like he’s transferring all his energy to Derek.

“Why would it trade Malia with a binding spell that has absolutely nothing beneficial to anyone except to humour us?” Lydia asks and everyone in the room makes an o shape with their mouths like they’re all thinking  _ oh right _ . “And didn’t Deaton say tricksters generally all take?”

“Deaton is wrong. Leshies like to play games.” Derek says bluntly. 

“It’s all a game.” Scott says suddenly. “Like the Nogitsune. It’s a game we’re just pawns in.” Derek looks over to Stiles rather violently, twisting his body to face Stiles more prominently.

“If we want to stay our normal selves, we have to get as much distance as possible.” he suggests quietly, mindlessly rubbing small circles into Stiles’ back which helps soothe him and he wonders why Scott’s hands weren’t as comforting.

“Okay so, you go to the Arctic and I’ll go someplace nice like Hawaii or the Bahamas.” 

“Stiles, I’m serious.” and with that, Derek stands up and leaves. He marches through the door, closing it quietly behind him like he was never there. The rest show various signs of confusion and a partial acceptance of what in hell is going on and eventually all leave as well, delegating Stiles to his own fit of panic he had actual difficulty showing while Derek was around, draining him of his energy. He finds himself missing Derek like some big part of him was stolen from his soul and ripped into shreds never to be pieced back together and he actually swallows down the urge to cry because over everything, he fully refuses to sob over Derek freaking Hale. 

But he does anyway and he feels better but now he wants a hug not from anybody else but Derek and he hates what he accidentally did. He falls asleep rather quickly and only wakes up at an ungodly hour in the morning when he hears the latch of his window open and a very broody, Derek looking figure stride over to his bed and curl up beside him. 

Maybe it isn’t so bad to be magically tethered with Derek Hale. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comment your confusion with the confusion meter   
> 1 being "not confused at all made perfect sense liz i love you to bits"  
> 98 being "what the actual fuck is going on"


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles and Derek were up all night making a Carefully Constructed Mission Board.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story is going nowhere near where i originally planned it to venture

Stiles claps his hands together and turns towards the Carefully Constructed Mission Board he made last night at an ungodly hour. It starts at the bottom with yearbook pictures (because it needed to look remotely professional and Malia doesn’t generally take selfies) of him and Malia taped to the bulletin board, then green string connects their pictures together, then connected to the green string is a red string that goes to the next row which consists of printed out wikipedia pages and other varieties of research on whatever the hell a Leshy exactly is and what it does and a picture he photocopied from the Bestiary of what the Leshy actually looks like then it-

“What the hell is this?” Lydia asks from across the room, interrupting. She is the only one who refuses to sit on the floor like everyone else because she “has already been through kindergarten once”. Stiles ignores her, however, because it’s blatantly obvious to what it is, he labelled stuff, and Lydia is smart so she can figure it out. Although Derek is much nicer about the question.

“Stiles and I made it last night.” he adds, absently waving towards the Carefully Constructed Mission Board. “It’s our plan on how we’re going to get Malia back.” 

“Yeah, see there’s Stiles and Malia,” Scott points to the two pictures on the bottom row, “and the red is for unsolved, right buddy?”

“And see it leads up to the Leshy who binded me and Derek together and then there are some green strings to my eyes glowing and getting my memories back and see,” Stiles bends down to point at the package of research on answers to how Leshy spirits take memories, which frankly is a chaotic process of controlling magic and weaving through foundations of information, picking apart the brain’s capacity of memory quite tediously to find the exact chunk of memory the Leshy chooses to extract, and why they do it is purely for privacy reasons and the benefit of humour which Stiles strangely respects, “and a more extended explanation of Deaton’s to why my eyes turned purple, and then a red string connects to a few memories I still have missing but Derek brought up that the Leshy probably kept those memories because over here,” he follows a combined red and green string to another package of information taped to the board “it gives a more candid elucidation on-”

“Candid elucidation?” Liam repeats.

“A straight-forward explanation, just in Stiles language.” Lydia answers and Stiles can hear the overly dramatic eye roll.

“-how they give memories back and  _ choose _ which ones to give back and which ones to keep and Derek and I concluded that the Leshy probably kept those specific memories of how it exactly took Malia so I can’t reverse it or do the exact same thing to get her back and then that connects with a red string to how to cheat the system and get my memory back of the Leshy taking Malia so I can do exactly what it doesn’t want me to do and reverse the spell or whatever and that brings us to where we are today.” 

“And where exactly are we today?” Kira asks.

“There are these two types of magic called Baile and Aimsir which when put together, generally mean to use the elements that surround us to bring someone or to come home. When the Leshy used it’s magic to connect Stiles and I, it gave away a piece of itself-”

“And with the extensive research we’ve done, I’m almost positive I’ll be able to feel if anything happens to Malia.” Stiles finishes for Derek.

“How does that work?”

“Messing with emotions is dangerous and leaves open scars, like what Deaton said about Stiles’ vulnerability to tricksters and how he acts as an open vessel. Transferring with emotions for any trickster or druid leaves those remnants and technically gives away a piece of itself.” Stiles still feels the emotional power he had with the nogitsune every day and the thirst for control is still immensely profound is left unsaid. 

“It took Malia for an advantage. The power of a-”

_ “-Banshee.” Noshiko’s voice echos, sending a cold chill through Stiles’ bones as he stares up at her. He feels the sudden urge to break her neck; to feel her struggle and tense in his grip, her blood circulating and coursing through her panicked veins just under his fingertips, only to make her limp and vulnerable with a quick snap of his wrists and the satisfying thud of her body as it collapses against the floor motionless, and frankly dead, that comes after. But that’s not what  _ he _ wants. The desire can be overpowering, it  _ has _ been overpowering, and he really can’t decide which is more exhausting: the constant battle in the pit of his tortured soul over what he wants and what the nogitsune wants, or the strength it takes to overcome it instead of weakly balancing the argument in the middle. He doesn’t want more blood on his hands, he doesn’t want anyone else dead. He can’t help but wonder that if maybe he was stronger, the nogitsune’s desires wouldn’t win half the time.  _

“You okay?” Derek asks silently, snapping Stiles out of his flashback. He blinks a couple times, carefully avoiding Derek’s tense stare to see his friends have stood up and started to chat amongst themselves. 

“Yeah.” Derek doesn’t believe it and Stiles doesn’t care. “So, magic. I fell asleep before we got to that part last night.” 

“Deaton is going to teach you more about your spark you have. I don’t know a lot about it.” 

“Right.” Stiles scans his board for a second before ripping off an article he photocopied from the Bestiary about Baile and Aimsir magic and shoves it into his pocket even though it really doesn’t fit. “To Deaton’s!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lots of info but now we have a solid plan on what the hell is going on. yay me.   
> hope you're all not brutally confused and if you are, let me know.


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles has a fucking boss plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i honestly have no idea if this makes sense anymore.

Stiles is expecting the expected. He’s expecting Deaton to smack an entire new book of answers down in front of him and point out everywhere he went wrong. He expects a speech on how suicidal Stiles must be to walk straight into something so dangerous. But honestly, by now Stiles should expect the unexpected. 

The waiting room (for a change) is packed and Stiles has a moment of panic. This is unexpected. A vet clinic in Beacon Hills suddenly seems so phenomenally strange to him, that actual human beings have actual problems with their actual, non-supernatural, pets with actual money to pay Deaton, the actual vet, to help aid them which seems so fucking strange. Deaton looks at them all taking in the scene of an actually packed waiting room and sighs.

“Mr. Stilinski, I’m glad you came just on time. I was about to assume you weren’t coming.” Stiles gives him a confused expression because since when has he had to make appointments but then Derek tugs on his sleeve and he nods enthusiastically following Deaton into the back room. 

“You could’ve called.” Deaton says and Stiles can’t tell if he’s pissed or relieved he doesn’t have to deal with human problems at the moment. Although when they (quickly) explain their plan, Deaton is fairly surprised. A good kind of surprised, but that could easily be Stiles’ take on the situation because all he really wants is everything to be easy and go actually well for them for once.

“Baile and Aimsir magic,” Deaton starts, unlocking one of his ‘special’ cupboards to bring out two clear bottles filled with two different colours of powder: one holding a deep blue and one a crimson colour “were typically used as a location spell” he continues, opening the cap to the blue powder. He pours it on the steel table in front of him, creating a small circle. 

“It uses emotional power to reach out the bits of information it needs, mirroring the magic of a Leshy. For example, if someone was in trouble in a location that was unknown to them, fear would drive this magic.” he pours the red powder in the middle of the circle. The red then sparks a white light, bursting with purple strings of what Stiles supposes is magic. They drift in mid air for a bit before they collapse down against the table like dead weights and reach for the blue powder outlining it. It’s crazy to watch, the once to be purple strings merging together to make a type of purple looking vortex in the middle of Deaton’s lab table.

“Scott, come and put your hand through here.” Stiles snaps his head to look at Scott who momentarily looks mortified. But him being Scott, he rolls up his sleeve and slowly moves his hand towards the vortex. His hand stops at the surface like the vortex isn’t actually a vortex, but a fake vortex like something they’d have at the cheap Science Center or-

“It’s like… ice.”  _ or that. _

“Lydia, you try.” Lydia does the same but forms a fist first as if she’s readying herself to break the purple ice. When her hand stops abruptly at the surface just like Scott’s, Deaton flicks his eyes to Stiles. Stiles steps forward and rolls up his sleeve. 

“I get why it’s purple because like, blue and red makes purple. I’m glad the Druid who created this magic knows it’s colour theory.” which is not entirely what he wanted to say but he tends to vomit random phrases and chunks of thoughts that have entered his mind at one point when he’s nervous. What he means to say is will he get sucked into an alternate universe with sticking his very human, very trickster vessel hand into this Leshy portal. He’s half expecting his hand to stop on the surface as well, because he tends to expect the expected, and he’s half expecting to get his hand through the vortex only to pull out and see that he has no hand anymore because in Beacon Hills, he should know to always expect the unexpected. When his hand slips through the vortex/portal and appears on the end side of the table, he’s pleasantly relieved. He still has his hand AND didn’t get transported to a world of aliens among other things. 

“I was always suspicious of your spark, Stiles. Only an emissary can practice this type of magic, it isn’t like any other. It just so happens you hold the traits of a vessel and a true emissary.” And Deaton  _ smiles _ . Like he’s a proud father at a soccer championship. “Let me take a look at the bond though while you’re here.” he makes Derek and Stiles stand apart from each other while he rings them in the same blue powder, no red this time though. They won’t become their own purple vortex. When Deaton completes the outline, Stiles watches as both of them suddenly gleam a bright purple. It’s weird, like everything that has occurred so far. He looks over to Derek who is surrounded in a purple orb. Swirls of magic dance around him in random assortments, some particles flying above and around his head like dust and others following streams, it’s almost peaceful. Derek looks around his body, taking in the scene like how Stiles is and he wants to stay in this moment forever. Derek’s eyes glow up with what Stiles thinks is something bordering on actual happiness, and pure fucking joy and he feels giddy with how pleasantly the sight sits with him - Derek _ actually happy.  _

“Purple is a nice colour on you.” he says instead of  _ anything fucking else.  _ For a moment, he understands why he’s binded with Derek and not anyone else, because he tends to appreciate Derek so content. It’s warm, among other things.

“Shut up.” Derek looks over to Stiles, a smile tugging at his lips and eyes flicking over Stiles’ exterior. His voice is soft with the slightest edge to it and then Derek  _ laughs.  _ If things couldn’t get any better and Stiles catches himself wondering why Derek’s happiness literally makes him the most satisfied human being on planet earth. 

“Is that the binding?” Kira asks and Deaton nods, closing the cap to the jar and putting it back inside the cabinet.  _ Yes,  _ Stiles thinks.  _ Me not being able to take my eyes off Derek is definitely the binding.  _

“Yeah, that’s it.” Scott says, his voice breathy due to the pleasant state of shock he’s in. “My alpha eyes didn’t pick up this much though.”  _ Oh, the actual visible binding.  _ Stiles looks away from Derek for a second to catch Scott’s expression, suddenly becoming extremely interested in what a literal shocked puppy dog looks like. 

“Baile and Aimsir magic will look the same, although we won’t visibly see it wrapped around two people like this since it isn’t a binding spell” _obviously_ “but a location spell. Sometimes, there’s a message within the binding that a Leshy will put there. I have to admit, I didn’t know much about them but after reading up, they’re honestly quite fascinating.” Stiles wouldn’t particularly call them _fascinating,_ more of less complete assholes. Even when they’re essentially giving something, they still take. They take and they take and maybe give something in return, but it’s only to fuck with the person they took from it isn’t actually a fair exchange which Stiles doesn’t find very _fascinating_ if anyone were to ask him. Deaton takes out yet another jar, but filled with purple dust to match the dancing magic and he blows some between Stiles and Derek being careful not to cross the border of ash. Words start to appear, etched deep within the binding as if it was carved there with a chisel. 

**COME FIND ME**

Which frankly, is much too ominous for Stiles’ liking. It isn’t anything like ‘I ship you two profoundly, invite me to your wedding’ or ‘guys, seriously. it’s been two years of extreme emotional constipation please date already’ but  _ no  _ it says ‘come find me’. Which isn’t a very exciting plot twist in the grand scheme of things.

“What does that mean?” Scott asks, minimizing space to take a closer look. Deaton crosses his eyebrows which partially scares him because Deaton is supposed to know everything. 

“Derek, you said Laura knew a lot about tricksters.” Derek nods and a sort of dismay fills Stiles. Bringing up Derek’s family and stuff makes him sad because if anything, deserves better is pronounced the Hale family.

“She read me stories.” Derek corrects.

“Do you remember any of the specific themes of the stories? Like, the main motif the Leshy character had?” Stiles thinks for a moment. First, the forgetting. He’d never been in a situation where he honestly forgot what he did, fact, most times, he remembers too vividly. He means, why would the Leshy rip him out of bed, march him into the woods, then pick apart his brain only to not actually end up using it for  _ evil,  _ but to locate another pack member? Malia has obvious significance that Stiles doesn’t have, she owns something the Leshy wants from her and can only get from her. Then, while it’s fingers are dug into Stiles’ brain leaching info from the cortex, it had time to screw with Stiles’ emotions and attach him to Derek. It then kept a close eye on Stiles, waiting for the pack to come to a dead end, then suddenly give Stiles pieces of his memories back. 

“It’s a game. It’s totally and completely a deadass fucking game to this psycho. He doesn’t want us to just disappear, or give up. He wants us to keep coming, he wants to lead us to dead ends only to laugh in our faces. He wanted us to know he screwed something up, he wanted us to know he took Malia, he wanted us to know it used me to get to her. Now he wants to lead us on some extravagant adventure to rip it out from under our feet. He thinks it’s  _ funny.  _ He’s making it  _ his  _ story and we’re just the puppets he chose to mess with. Sure, there’s the specifics like he’s emotionally attached to me now, but he’s enjoying it.” 

“Are we going to play?” Lydia asks, a worried frown masking her face.

“Oh yeah. He wants a shit show, let’s fucking give him a shit show. We play along but we have our backup plan. Little does he know he picked a trickster vessel  _ and  _ a spark. Since I didn’t know it until three seconds ago, there’s no way he could know it.” Liam bangs the table with a hearty YEAH attached and Stiles loves it. 

He should really expect the expected more often because it always turns out to be completely unexpected.

 


End file.
